SC - Nautical foodstuffs

[Jeff Gedney]

Aoife said:
>My brother has some documentation that is colonial in nature. let me
>contact him and see if he has something earlier. He got interested from my
>experiments, and it's snowballed. Truth is, I've been doing this so long
>that I've forgotten my sources. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
>
I just found this last night, it's just a mention, not a recipe.  Does 
anyone know if there a facsimile of the Fettiplace book?

"Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book - Elizabethan Country House Cooking", 
Hilary Spurling, pg 209
"Lady Fettiplace made a liquor from equal parts white wine and white wine 
vinegar, boiled together with sugar, in which 'To keepe Barberries all the 
yeare'."

Barberries are defined on page 199:
"Barberries which, according toe Grieve's Herbal, are so sour even birds 
draw the line at eating them, were often added to low-acid drab-coloured 
fruits like pears or peeled quinces where a modern recipe would recommend 
lemon or redcurrant juice.  ... They are a pretty fruit, tiny, drop-shaped, 
coral-coloured, turning a clear ruby red when cooked; ..."

she goes on to say that the wild ones - Berberis vulgaris-have been almost 
entirely eradicated in this century in England in an attempt to wipe out the 
parasitic rust fungus, or wheat-mildew, to which it acts as host.  She 
suggests that one plant a row of ornamental Berberis Wilsonae.

On page 208 she suggests that the American cranberry was liked by the 
colonists because it reminded them of the highly prized barberry.

So, that places the general idea of sour berries pickled in a vinegar syrup 
in England about 1600 and that's the closest I've come to the idea of 
pickled fruit syrup as a drink concentrate.  How useful that is depends upon 
your own opinions, but I know what I'm experimenting on when cranberries 
show up in the stores.

>Oops, just remembered that the Miscellany (Cariadoc) has several under
>Sekanjubin, one of which it also states can be made from any sort of fruit.

I'll have to check that again, I must have missed it.  The Florilegium file 
on jalabs has mention of these drinks, that's what started me off.  But 
there's not even vague documentation.


I did place my cherry syrup and sekanjabin and for that matter, the pickled 
cherries themselves out at the Pearl's review. My documentation was 
basically a statement that I'd seen it mentioned but hadn't firmly pinned it 
down, and I wrote down the Dara goldstein's statement from 'A Taste of 
Russia' re: Peter the Great bringing the idea of pickled fruit back from 
Holland.  One Pearl, actually made a comment on the paper that was left for 
that purpose.  No criticism of the lack of documentation, just a comment 
that the idea of drinking vinegar bothered him, but actually both tasted 
pretty good.

The disappointing part is that the cherry syrup is all gone now. :-(

Bonne


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